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Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Debunking the half-truths and exaggerations in the Truth and Reconciliation report

As expected from the pre-release sound bites, the Final Report of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission reinforces the many half-truths, exaggerations, and selective reporting about the schools and their mission.

The most incendiary and least credible of these is the assertion by the Commission’s chair, Judge Murray Sinclair, that the 150,000 children who attended these mainly Church-run schools between 1849 and 1996 were considered “sub-human,” a claim belied by their very raison-d’être: to give aboriginal children the chance to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to fully benefit from membership in the new country of Canada.

Was this an ethnocentric goal? Absolutely. So was the goal of educating the children of the millions of disadvantaged immigrants who came from all over the world during the same period, resulting in the same acculturation ­spuriously called “cultural genocide” — that has occurred around the world since the origin of human beings...

1 comment:

Oh what a tangled web we weave ,when first we practice to deceive.There is no denying that residential schools are a dark stain on our collective conscience . To couch that historical event in the hyperbolic language of ‘ genocide ‘ belies the purported healing process of this Truth and reconciliation commission ! To claim the intent of residential schools was genocidal , the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group is emotionally overwrought, calculated to leave a heavy toll on society as a whole. The leap from ‘survivors’ of residential schools to ‘survivors’ of an orchestrated and systematic genocide is histrionic. I’m afraid this is an attempt at leaping into the coveted sanctum of Holy-Victimology , the Holy-of-Holies, the title of GENOCIDE , where perpetual quilt is demanded and invoking the sacrosanctity of a genocidal narrative which most remain venerated and un-debatable. No one can ever ‘ reconcile’ with a ‘GENOCIDE’..... NEVER !